The Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, California

"I completely agree with what you said about there being times in our lives when we seem deaf to nature or when nature doesn't seem to speak to us any more. I often have that feeling, too, and sometimes it helps to undertake quite a different thing. When I have had enough of landscape or light effects, I attack figures, and vice versa. Sometimes one can do nothing but wait until it passes, but many a time I succeed in chasing that feeling of impassiveness away by changing subjects."
Vincent van Gogh, letter 237

Still feeling sick, but managed a 3 mile run and a 90 minute darkroom session.

Printed a neg from the recent railyard excursion. When my head feels woozy I can't think very well, and as I gazed at the negative on the lightbox I could not decide how it should be printed. I told myself that even though I was not at my best, it was still good to be printing. It is the many failures which lead one closer to success, which in my case is a good print.

I made an initial work print, and stared at it in the water tray. I decided to print it with a full frame border, because the majority of the picture was white. My first impression was to make the sky gray, which I believed would contrast nicely with the snow and the black rails in the foreground.

The gray sky did not really look good, though, so I went the opposite way and printed the sky white. With very little gray it made the scene look stark, but I was feeling tired at this point so stopped working on it.

There are a couple of other negs from that day which I would like to print, when I am feeling better I may have better luck.

Print Info Sheet for Railyard, First Snow

Fahey :